About New York; He Conned the Society Crowd but Died Alone

By DAN BARRY

Published: July 19, 2003

David Hampton's pursuit of a fabulous Manhattan life ended last month in the early-morning hush of a downtown hospital. No celebrities keened by his bedside, no theatrics unfolded in the hall; there was no last touch of the fabulous. Just the clinical cluck that follows the death of a man who dies alone at 39.

His name may not resonate, but his story will. David Hampton was the black teenager who conned members of the city's white elite 20 years ago with an outsized charm. He duped them into believing that he was a classmate of their children, the son of Sidney Poitier, and a victim of muggers who had just stolen his money and Harvard term paper -- a term paper titled ''Injustices in the Criminal Justice System.''

The scam yielded a modest payoff: temporary shelter, a little cash, and the satisfaction of having mocked what he saw as the hypocritical world of limousine liberalism. He also briefly experienced the glamorous Manhattan life that had first seduced him from his upper-middle-class home in Buffalo, a city that he once said lacked anyone ''who was glamorous or fabulous or outrageously talented.''

''New York was the place for him,'' Susan V. Tipograph, a lawyer and close friend, said. ''In his mind, the fabulous people lived in New York City.''

But Mr. Hampton paid long-term costs for his New York conceit and deceit. For beguiling the affluent under false pretenses -- the formal charge was attempted burglary -- he received 21 months in prison. And for being such a distinctive character, he received eternal notoriety as the inspiration for ''Six Degrees of Separation,'' a 1990 play by John Guare that became a hit and then a movie.

The play indeed centers on a young black man who poses as Sidney Poitier's son, and uses many details from the case. For example, it includes the singular moment when Osborn Elliott, a former editor of Newsweek, and his wife, Inger, evicted Mr. Hampton after finding their charming houseguest in bed with a man he had smuggled into their apartment. But Mr. Guare created many other details in writing a play that is a meditation on race relations, art and self-delusion.

Still, the thought that others were profiting from his hoax -- his performance art, really -- galled Mr. Hampton; in a way, he was the mark. He sued Mr. Guare and others for $100 million, and lost. He was tried on charges of harassing Mr. Guare, but was never convicted. He took a shot at acting, but his artistry clearly resided in the con.

Mr. Hampton continued duping others for money, for attention, and for entree into what he saw as the V.I.P. room of New York life. He would meet men in bars, dazzle them with his good looks and intellect, drop celebrity tidbits gleaned from prior scams -- and then fleece them. Sometimes he was Patrick Owens; sometimes Antonio Jones; sometimes, just David.

But his name appeared more often in crime reports than in the society pages, usually for matters that fell far short of being fabulous: fare-beating, credit-card theft, threats of violence. He once told a judge that he had missed a court date because of a car accident; the ambulance report that he produced to back up his claim was, of course, a fake.

''He would often call me for advice,'' said Ronald L. Kuby, a friend and well-known lawyer who had represented him in the harassment case. ''All I could tell him was to stop doing these things.''

Something about David Hampton, it seems, prevented him from the enjoyment of simply being David Hampton. Although he felt used by the Guare play, he was using people well before and well after the ''Six Degrees of Separation'' phenomenon. What's more, he could be a real snob in determining one's fabulousness.

''There were times when I was socializing with people who wouldn't even dare have an Elliott, much less a Guare, at their dinner table,'' he told New York magazine in 1991. ''But yet I had been at their dinner table. Legitimately, too.''

Ms. Tipograph, who cleaned out his small room at an AIDS residence after he died at Beth Israel Medical Center, said that in the end, Mr. Hampton had a difficult life.

She said that she chooses to remember the warmth of a con artist who was also a friend. ''I'm a 52-year-old overweight lawyer with bad knees; clubbing is not my thing,'' she said. ''But we had a very regular friendship. We had lunch together. We had a very un-fabulous relationship.''

Mr. Hampton, she said, ''gave enjoyment, even when he did bad.''

One of his last victims, at least as far as law-enforcement officials know, was Peter Bedevian, who went out on a date in late October 2001 with the man he knew as David Hampton-Montilio.

Before heading for a restaurant, Mr. Hampton said that he wanted to take Mr. Bedevian to a 9/11 celebrity benefit, but that he needed to be fronted $1,000 for the two tickets. Mr. Bedevian withdrew the money from an A.T.M. Mr. Hampton dashed into a downtown hotel to buy the tickets -- from ''friends from L.A. who were in town,'' as Mr. Bedevian recalled -- and then the two sat down to eat.

They lived it up. They ate and drank, and talked about everything from the need to break out of their post-9/11 funk to the extraordinary talents of Billie Holiday. ''He was able to pick out a little information, extrapolate, and use it to make me feel even more comfortable,'' Mr. Bedevian remembered. He added, ''He knew how to tease you with 'Oh, we're going to go to this benefit, and so-and-so's going to be there.' ''

Mr. Hampton ordered a couple of $23 shots of fine Scotch as after-dinner drinks, Mr. Bedevian recalled. But it seemed the right thing to do; both men were living for the day.

Later would come the pain of having been suckered. Of Mr. Hampton excusing himself to use the bathroom, never to return; of getting stuck with the $423 dinner bill; of pressing criminal charges to get back his $1,000; of identifying his charming dinner date through the glass of a police station's one-way mirror.

But Mr. Bedevian also had this to say about his night with the notorious David Hampton, seeker of the fabulous. ''Honestly?'' he said. ''It was one of the best dates that I ever went on.''

Photo: David Hampton, the subject of John Guare's play ''Six Degrees of Separation,'' in 1990. Mr. Hampton himself aspired to be an actor. (William E. Sauro/The New York Times)(pg. B3)